The National Youth Orchestra (NYO) launches 2026 with Shimmer, a three-date tour where the orchestra will be conducted by Alexandre Bloch in a programme with a distinctly Spanish theme. The evening begins with Debussy’s Ibéria and ends with […]
It is now moderately well-known that the great scientist Galileo Galilei’s father, Vincenzo was a fine musician and there have been music and music theatre projects linking the two such as Clare Norburn’s Galileo which […]
Ben Edge: Devil’s Den Last year I chatted to conductor Finnegan Downie Dear (artistic director of Shadwell Opera) and composer Isabella Gellis about Shadwell Opera’s semi-staged presentation of Gellis’ new opera, The Devil’s Den at […]
Handel: Messiah – Wild Arts at Smith Square Hall in 2024 (Photo: Steve Gregson) We caught Wild Arts’ dramatised presentation of Handel’s Messiah at the Art Workers’ Guild in London in 2023 [see my review] in […]
James Joyce began his novel Finnegan’s Wake in 1924 publishing it in instalments with the final book only being published in 1939. Joyce’s radical reworking of language in the book was initially received with bafflement and […]
Last seen (by me, at least) as composer at a Wigmore Hall concert featuring Héloïse Werner (The Plot: review). Zoë Martlew now steps forward into the limelight of the recorded arena with her first complete […]
Janácek: The Makropulos Case – Act 2: Heather Engebretson, Susan Bickley, Jenry Waddington, Sean Panikkar, Ausrine Stundyte – Royal Opera (Photo: Camilla Greenwell/Royal Opera) Leoš Janáček: The Makropulos Case; Ausrine Stundyte, Heather Engebretson, Sean Panikkar, […]
James Blades The percussionist James Blades (1901-1999) had a career that not only spanned much of the century but also moved from circus drummer and accompanist to silent movies at the Wisbech Hippodrome, to the […]
“Exile” is certainly a topic du jour, even more so Han wan Paicia Kpopatchinskaja and Thomas Kaufmann recorded this Alpha disc in March 2024 in Bern, Switzerland. So it is that most composers on this […]
Lawrence Brownlee Tenor Lawrence Brownlee is on of the premier bel canto tenors around at the moment. And he’s rightly busy, his season included a last-minute step-in as Elvino in Bellini’s La sonnambula at the […]
